As with everything, it's just too convenient to lump people into categories. VCs as poor seed investors is convenient for some because they can lean on a few rich examples that everyone seems to have - even if without personal experience. Extremes are easy and help that categorization, of course. bad stories multiply much faster than most good ones.

As you say, it's a disservice to both VCs and to startups who might not look at VCs as a channel for investment. It's a much bigger problem for the startups, though.

Great post. It's interesting to see how once "fringe players" are now becoming the big ugly kid on the block and are being attacked. We see it happening with Google right now. Apple is starting to fight lawsuits in Europe the way we used to only see Microsoft do it. Welcome to the top, Cupertino boys . . .

I've always thought that Apple's stand on spyware/malware on Windows was going to backfire on them. They aggressively went after Windows as being insecure when the real issue is that the spyware experts could have cared less about destroying the data of 2-3% of the pc users out there. We're already seeing more reports of data corruption and data distribution on Macs than ever before. Stupid corporate move IMO. You never, for example hear an airline talk about the other guys' safety record. It's not about bad form, it's just stupid to subject yourself to the blowback that'll come the first time a hatch opens on one of your jets at altitude. Welcome to the top . . .

Yeah, that was the implication. I didn't feel like giving them that much credit. :-)

Happy 20th, Alan! My parents never even made it to 18 - and it was a crappy 18 at that. I apparently avoided those genes.

So true. Hadn't even thought about that. :-)

Of course, I was joking about the whole international language thing and used Esperanto as the crux of my joke . . . That said, English makes a load of sense as the international language. Primarily because it already is - as least more than any other language in the world. While Mandarin is spoken by more people (I believe I read this recently), English is spoken much more broadly - more cultures, more locations.

The downside, as the video you pointed out states pretty clearly, is that English is hard to learn. IMO, this problem is somewhat mitigated by the fact that it's relatively easy to find an English speaker to converse with almost anywhere in the world - at least in the Northern Hemisphere. As anyone who has tried to learn a foreign (to them) language will tell you, the ability to actually practice and use the language is the key to learning it. That's why language immersion programs work so much better than plain old classroom oriented ones.

When one generalizes, they're in for all sorts of trouble :-) There are, of course, a minority of Subaru owners who are more than capable of taking full advantage of their cars and making them work at speed. I'm honored that Shay here, as one of the few, has joined the conversation. Subarus are great cars - even better when people use them as they should. Thanks for leading the pack, Shay.

When asked about how school went during his first semester, my son says: "I had a lot of fun." That about says it all. Grades were clearly not a focus for him, not that they ever have been :-( I'm glad he had fun though. Hopefully, he gets the whole achievement thing eventually.

As for me. Things got better. Some of it through the rationalization of what was going on and perhaps more of it from the fact that he was around way more than I thought. As an avid Patriots fan, he did everything in his power to share Dad's (my) season tickets as often as possible. Between a few games and holidays, I don't think I ever went three weeks without seeing him. That was really good for me since this coming semester will be a lot different. I'll see him late in March and then, not until May. Yikes. At least I didn't make an emotional fool of myself when he left for school the other day.

I'm feeling better about things in general, too. I realize that we have many strong connections between us and while he's leading a new and different life now, some basic bonds will remain strong or, at least will remain in some form.

Thanks for checking in. Good luck with your daughter this year and with the transition in the Fall. Cherish every moment.

Brian, as Brad mentioned, I'm a fellow data junkie and avid cyclist. IMO, there are no really good solutions to cycling data capture, viewing and analysis. If you're into training with power, TrainingPeaks WKO+ is the best way to go. If seeing your routes is what you like, then MapMyRide (sorta) and Garmin Connect are better solutions. SportTracks is also a reasonable product, but is not web based and while it looks pretty, I find it difficult to use. None are complete, however. FitnessKeeper, the RunKeeper folks, have a terrific back end that will eventually be mapped for use with cycling, but it's not there yet.

The bottom line is that if you're a total data junkie who likes to do a lot of analysis on all aspects of cycling - power, cadence, speed, training, routes, climbing, etc. - there's nothing out there. Like you, I've been thinking of writing one myself in the mean time.

That said, I think the best overall solution right now is a WKO+. Garmin Connect is the best alternative if you're not tracking power.

In any case, you'll need a device to collect the information. I use a Garmin 705 and I love it. I also have a PowerTap to communicate power info to the head unit. Sincve everything is integrated, all the cycling info I need is on one device which is *almost* a de facto standard - it's file formats can be read by most programs and web site.

John,

That's hilarious!  So true and very disappointing about Bridge.

I've seen the customizations in Lightroom.  Since I don't use 'em I forgot all about them.  It's actually pretty cool. 

The other thing that I neglected to mention was that it's really easy to save the edits to a single photo as a present.  For pros, who have taken a set of photos with certain lighting, a single preset to apply to a batch of images speeds things up immensely.